Jewish cemetery in France vandalized

PARIS (JTA) — Graves were desecrated in a small Jewish cemetery in northeastern France.

Some 49 large, limestone tombstones were found knocked over and broken last Saturday in a cemetery not far from the German border. No written messages were found at the scene. The 19th century cemetery in the town of Bar-le-Duc, in the Lorraine region, contains 126 graves.

Several Jewish and Muslim cemeteries have been desecrated in the past year around the northeastern French region.

Police believe the large stones could not have been moved by a single individual. The local state prosecutor opened an investigation, the AFP news service reported.

The French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism condemned the crime.

Devorah Lauter is a JTA Paris correspondent. She has written and worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press Paris bureaus, and is a regular contributor to The New Waver Quarterly, which covers French culture. Lauter is currently completing a master's thesis at Saint Denis University on the relationship between Jewish and Muslim youth in Parisian low-income suburbs, as well as a collection of true stories on a Jewish and Muslim mixed gang.